Play sets that include action figures and other playing pieces are becoming increasingly popular, and normally involve a primary toy, a plurality of action figures and/or a plurality of play accessories. An action figure could have a visual appearance that represents a person, an animal, or thing of an exciting nature, such as comic or movie characters, national heroes, monster figures, science fiction personalities, celebrities or the like. Action figures normally include articulated parts, and in the case of a human figure, articulated body parts such as arms, legs, head etc. Examples of toy action figures include dolls associated with play sets such as doll houses, kitchen sets, camping grounds, beach settings, or the like. Animal action figures are associated with play sets that include a farm, a zoo, a circus, etc. Hero action figures could be associated with battle ground play sets, rescue play sets, or the like. Most of these play sets are passive in that there is no centralized intelligence in a play set that detects how the child is playing with the various play set pieces, what specific play pieces (action figures and/or accessories) are being played with at a given time, or how the child has interacted with the play set during past play sessions. A child normally uses his or her imagination to interact the action figures and other play accessories with the primary toy in a playing set. Further, there could be a number of playing activities that involve accessories associated with either the primary toy, and/or the action figures. For example, an action figure doll with a plurality of clothing accessories, a toy car with a plurality of traffic signs, a rescue action figure with a plurality of rescue tools, etc.
To enhance the play value of play sets, it is desirable to keep track of what specific play pieces are being used by a child at a given point in time, and how the child is playing with these pieces. It is also desirable to link current interactions to the history of how the child has interacted with the play set in the past. Such intelligence would allow the development of more interactive play sets that challenge players to perform certain activities or tasks, and to also provide feedback to the player based on how the player is interacting with the play set, or has interacted with the play set in prior play sessions. To implement this intelligence feature, it is desirable to simultaneously identify multiple playing pieces, in real time, without constraining the child from moving the pieces around the play set. It is, also, desirable to minimize plugging in accessories into either action figures or the main toy setting unless such plug-in accessories are part of the play pattern for a play set. Further, it is desirable that such identification is implemented in a cost effective way, and preferably without the use of battery operated action figures or accessories.
There are a number of options to interconnect elements of a play set together. For many years, wireless remote control apparatus that employ modulated radio frequency signals were used to send and receive information between elements of a play set, such as a remote control toy car, racing cars, and the like. Similarly, infrared (“IR”) communication devices have been used for remote control applications, and to provide communications between two similar devices. For example in applications that provide interactions between two similar dolls, IR technology is used to transmit and receive control signals between the two doll devices. Also, magnetic coupling has been used to identify various play pieces to a primary toy device in a play set. More recently, passive Radio Frequency Identification (“RFID”) technology has matured to become a cost effective wireless communication alternative for the identification, and tracking of action figures, and accessories in a play set. Other technologies available for identification, and tracking of play pieces include bar coding, laser scanning, and mechanical configurations that activate a plurality of micro switches.
The main focus of the invention herein is to provide intelligent play sets that employ a plurality of play pieces, wherein each play piece, or a combination of play pieces, affect the functionality of the play set, and wherein the play pattern is personalized to the manner in which a player has interacted with the play set during previous play sessions. Further, the present invention enables players to program new interactions for a play set using basic interactions as building blocks.